Liberty Produce awarded £420,000 to scale up hybrid vertical farming in Singapore
(Credit: Liberty Produce)
20 Apr 2021 - An industry team led by agri-tech specialist Liberty Produce has been awarded £420,000 (US$588,000) in funding from Innovate UK to scale up hybrid farming and greenhouse technologies that work toward Singapore’s food security and net-zero ambitions.
Its fully-controlled indoor vertical farming system, Liberator, will be installed at the LivFresh hydroponics farm in Singapore, where it will be integrated with existing advanced greenhouse technology.
“Part of the issue is that a range of promises have been made around vertical farming being a silver bullet solution for our European food productivity questions,” Dr. Dylan Banks, co-founder, Liberty Produce, tells
UK team boosts Singapore food security
Ag-tech firm Liberty Produce leads consortium to help boost fresh produce self-sufficiency in Asian nation
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An industry team led by ag-tech specialist Liberty Produce has won Innovate UK funding to develop innovative hybrid farming and greenhouse technologies to work towards Singapore’s food security and net-zero goals.
The award will see Liberty Produce jointly lead the Hybrid Advanced Research Vertical Farming Environment Systems and Technology (HARVEST) consortium with Singapore-based LivFresh, a high-precision controlled environment (HPCE) company. The UK’s James Hutton Institute and Republic Polytechnic Singapore (RP) are research partners.
The Singapore government has initiated a number of strategic policy initiatives with the goal of increasing self-production of its fresh produce by 30 per cent by 2030 via investment in high-tech farms, among other measures. Currently, Singapore imports over 90 per cent of its fo